


all the in-betweens

by captainmarvel (DramionesLady)



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (s), F/F, Fluff, Getting Together, Missing Scene, Mutual Pining, Vignette
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23018443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DramionesLady/pseuds/captainmarvel
Summary: How they get together, and what happens next. Or, missing moments, Blackhill style.
Relationships: Maria Hill/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 24
Kudos: 147





	1. natalie rushman

**Author's Note:**

> *taps mic* is this thing still on?  
> So real life has been... the worst, and I’m counteracting it with my fave gal pals. I’m still sailing on this mighty ship.  
> To anyone waiting on more 'become the target...' I’m sorry!! It’ll come at some point, just not sure when.  
> I’ve no clue how many chapters this will be in total, each chapter will be linked, but also each chapter is a complete lil scene/ficlet by itself.
> 
> ANWAY, rambling over.  
> Enjoy!

Natalie Rushman had started off as a joke. A thought experiment. A late night conversation with Coulson and Hill and Clint about how they’d infiltrate Stark Industries, hypothetically.This was back when Stark dealt exclusively in weapons, not superhero-ing, and SHIELD made it their business to have all such wild cards in their database. Under observation. Just in case.

Coulson’s hypothetical had him playing the part of the strait-laced agent, aviators included. Hill suggested she’d use her Marines background. Clint had spent at least ten minutes detailing a melodramatic heist before Coulson had pointed out it was the plot to _Mission: Impossible 2_. Natasha, having zoned out somewhere around minute four of Clint’s plan, had started creating an alias. A model. A linguist. An assistant. She’d shared her plan with a wry smile. Guys like Stark were too easy. It was Hill who’d given her the name. Natalie Rushman. Maria had smiled as she suggested it, like it was something secret, and before Natasha could analyse the warm feeling that had given her, it had stuck. 

Three years later, when Iron Man is dying, Nat receives an e-mail from Coulson with the subject heading, ‘Miss Rushman, how do you feel about Malibu?’ 

The job is simplistic.

After the reveal, when Stark asks Natasha if anything about her is real, she wants to laugh.She wants to say that she’s had to break down and reconstruct her personality so many times that she knows herself better than most civilians do.She wants to tell him how, for the past few years, after a hard mission Strike Team Delta will order far too much takeout and play board games until the adrenaline wears off.She wants to tell him that at some point, they’d invited Hill along and now, when Maria can’t make it, Nat feels the absence like it’s something solid. Instead, she makes a quip in Latin and slams the door behind her. Then she pulls out her phone.

 **Fucking Stark,** she sends off, and it takes barely twenty seconds for a response to ping through.

 **Yet you still found time to text me? I knew he’d be terrible in bed.** Maria responds. Nat smirks despite herself.

 **Ha ha. I still think we should’ve sent Barton in.** Natasha settles herself on one of the seats in the SI lobby.It takes a while for the next response to come through, but when it does it’s a picture of Clint, covered in purple band aids, his leg in a cast, and he’s giving the camera the middle finger.

 **He’s just not looking as pretty as you right now** Maria follows it up with. Nat worries her bottom lip between her teeth.This has been happening a lot lately, the almost flirting between them.It’s generic enough that it could just be a joke, and that’s how Natasha has dismissed it, for the most part.Even as a joke though, it still makes her face feel warm.It’s ridiculous. She’s the Black Widow.She knows, objectively, that she’s attractive.It’s not something she’s proud of, she didn’t earn it in any way, it’s just another weapon in her arsenal.And yet… Coming from Maria, who has become _Maria_ and not _Hill_ sometime over the past few months, it feels different.She’s an assassin blushing like a teenager.Nat’s fingers hover over the keypad of her phone, waiting for the right response to materialise on the screen.It doesn’t.

A moment later, she doesn’t have to. Another message from Maria appears. **Working from home is hell. Working from Barton’s place is torture. He’s been doing nothing but watching reality TV and chugging coffee. Remind me again why I’m the one babysitting?**

Nat lets out a deep breath, grateful for the way out. **He must be missing Coulson**. **If you left him with anyone else he’d be trying out crutches parkour. Again.** Natasha hesitates, then adds, **Malibu is worse than Iceland ’06.** She hopes Maria understands what she’s saying. 

Just then, Happy comes strolling into the offices, heading straight towards Natasha.Well, towards Natalie.She slides her phone back into her bag. 

Things get hectic from there. But after the Expo, after she’s exerted her frustration on a plethora of Hammer’s goons, she checks her phone. There’s a long thread of texts from Clint, bemoaning his situation, but after she’s scrolled past them all, there’s another new message, from Maria. 

**I miss you too, Nat**.

And Natasha smiles. ****


	2. new mexico

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back...? Maybe? Writer's block has had me in its grasp! Hope everyone is staying as safe as they can in this crazy time.
> 
> Anyway, here's more of my fave girls. Enjoy!

Maria wasn’t supposed to be in New Mexico. 

But Fury had called and wanted her there. Well, more accurately, wanted her to get Barton there. Why he wanted an archer with a broken leg was beyond Maria, but she had complied, mostly to get out of the house.Honestly, between the babysitting and the chauffeuring she’d had little time to do her actual job.Her reward for being the only one left in the state who could handle Hawkeye. She was going to have a serious talk with Nick about a promotion when she next got him alone.

The journey to New Mexico was tedious. Barton had needed to pee every twenty minutes, and Maria had consumed an inordinate amount of snacks to stop herself from punching him in the face.In a friendly way, of course.Nevertheless, by the time they pulled up at the crash site, the sun setting, they were both itching to do something useful, and having scared a fresh-faced SHIELD agent with her expression alone, Maria was feeling…on edge, to say the least.

Leaving Barton to limp off and find Fury, Maria made her way into the makeshift SHIELD facility, a maze of tents and interconnecting tunnels that did nothing to keep out the heat.She absentmindedly pulled her hair up into a bun, muttering under her breath about the lack of signage in this place, and rounded the corner straight into Jasper Sitwell. 

“Jesus, Hill, what’re you doing out here?” Sitwell pushed his glasses back into place, their collision having knocked them askew. 

“I brought Barton,” Maria said, trying to keep her tone from sounding too defensive.From the look Sitwell gave her, she hadn’t been entirely successful.“How’s it stand? Anyone managed to get that thing out the ground yet?”

“Not even a little bit. Fury said something about getting Stark to do a flyby, but he wants to exhaust all other possibilities first.”

Maria made a noncommittal sound, trying to push away the beginnings of a headache.She dreaded the files she’d have to dig up if Stark became regularly involved at SHIELD.

“Speaking of which, have you caught up with Coulson yet? He and Romanov got in a couple of days ago, straight from Malibu.” As Sitwell was talking, he had started to lead Maria towards the epicentre of SHIELD’s makeshift set up.Maria was trying to remember every turn he took when her brain finally processed what Sitwell had said.She halted in the doorway to the agent’s workstation. 

“Wait, Widow is here?” Maria asked, “and Coulson?” she added after a second’s consideration.

“Yeah, I thought you knew,” Sitwell answered with a shrug, settling himself at his desk. 

Maria pulled out her phone whilst Sitwell was busy typing, and sent a quick text to Nat.

**You’re in NM? I thought you had time off after Malibu?**

Jasper was chattering away about getting Maria a pass printed for the facility, but she was too distracted to take it in.This was ridiculous.She was a top level agent, why was the surprise of Natasha being in the area getting to her? Maria pointedly decided to ignore the fact that she knew the answer. 

Things had been different, recently, with her and Nat.Sometime after Strike Team Delta game night became a regular thing, there’d been this…energy building between them.(She would not call it tension or chemistry or anything else that let her ponder how to put such feelings to use.) Maria had convinced herself she’d been projecting, though.This was Natasha, for God’s sake, she would have chemistry with a lump of coal.Nevertheless, the mere mention of Nat’s name had her brain flashing through a selection of almosts—

The lingering hand on her arm after the Paris mission went to shit.The tin of peppermint tea on her desk when Nat returned from Morocco. Nat’s face when she’d come to in the infirmary to see Maria waiting for her.The feeling of Nat against her back as they fought in tandem.

—the strategist in Maria had written them off as isolated incidents.Outliers.They’d worked together for a long time, and sometimes familiarity looked like interest.On the other hand, though, the weeks Nat had been in Malibu had seemed like some of the longest of Maria’s life. And, given the volume of text exchanges she had on her phone between them, it seemed as if Nat may have felt similarly. She’d told Nat in exact words that she missed her. Was it truly reaching to think there was something beyond friendly camaraderie there? 

Sitwell handed Maria a badge, snapping her from her introspection.

“Thanks,” Maria said.She needed a distraction, and told Sitwell she was going to take a look at the crash site.

Thankfully, with his directions, she managed to get there without any trouble. Maria pushed out into the clearing, pulling up her hood against the unseasonable rainfall. A rumble of thunder passed overhead.A solitary figure stood before the hammer, wearing a huge raincoat of their own, their back to Maria. 

At the sound of Maria’s footfalls through the mud, they turned around, and the hood slipped backwards, exposing curls of dark red hair.The tension fled from Maria’s brow. 

“Hill,” Nat didn’t sound surprised, she was too used to masking her emotions for that, but there was a quirk to her brow, a playful expression dancing over her lip as she took in Maria before her. 

“I texted you,” Maria said, the first thing to come to mind. “I’m surprised you chose to be here, after weeks of Stark.”

Nat pulled her hands from her pockets, gesturing widely at the mud and the tunnels getting drenched in the increasingly heavy rain. “And miss all this? Land of Enchantment, so I hear.”

“So the sign says,” Maria responded, moving closer to Natasha to hear her over the downpour. Despite the protection of her raincoat, there were raindrops hanging from Nat’s eyelashes, one racing down the hollow of her throat.Maria looked down at the object at her feet.The hammer seemed fused to the mud that surrounded it.“Have you tried?”

“No,” Natasha said, her voice carefully even, too much so to Maria’s ears, and she nodded as if she believed her.“I didn’t actually mean to come here,” Nat continued, and Maria looked back up at her.“I fell asleep in Coulson’s car.” This last part was uttered with a smile that on anyone else Maria would have called bashful.

That was something else she’d learnt about Nat over the past few years.Sometimes, the Black Widow could be a real dork. 

Maria let out a short laugh, and hoped that the warmth in it was tempered by the rain.

“Well, I hope your road trip was better than mine.Barton in close quarters is a real test of my patience.” Maria tugged at the sleeves on her jacket for something to do with her hands.

“Welcome to my world, Hill,” Nat said.“Me and Coulson got chocolate doughnuts and quizzed each other on useless trivia.”

“How charming,” Maria teased, laughing again, and the resulting smile from Nat had her blushing even in the cool rain.“So, have you seen this guy yet?”

“The so-called God? Not yet,” Natasha was back to her patented nonchalance.This time, even to Maria’s ears, it seemed sincere.

“What do you make of all this? Do you think the Initiative could stand a chance after all?” Maria tried to match Nat’s tone, professional curiosity.

“Is this a debriefing, Maria?” Nat narrowed her eyes.All Maria could focus on was her name coming from Romanov’s mouth.It wasn’t the first time, but even so, hearing it still sent a shot of pleasure down her spine. 

“Only if that means we can get out of the rain, Natasha,” Maria replied. Nat smiled, brushing past Maria and back towards the tunnels. Natasha’s fingertips skimmed over Maria’s as she went, touch feather light but unmistakable, even though there was no real reason for her to pass by so closely. 

Nat peered at her over her shoulder after a second or so, noticing that Maria hadn’t yet moved. They locked eyes, and something like a spot of sunlight winked into being in Maria’s chest. 

“I found Fury’s stash of good coffee,” Nat offered.“Shall we?”

“As your superior officer, I demand you share your findings,” Maria said, following in Nat’s wake.“After you, Agent Romanov.”

“Right this way, Commander.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, your comments & kudos are much appreciated if you have the chance.  
> Look after yourselves!
> 
> PS, rewatching the 'A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor's Hammer' One-shot and imagining Nat asleep in Coulson's car fuelled me writing this. Now I want doughnuts!


	3. ice breakers

The weeks following New Mexico had passed Nat by in a blur. Maria, relieved of her Barton-wrangling duties, had headed back to D.C. with a frankly absurd amount of paperwork, whilst Nat herself was sent out on half a dozen missions across the length and breadth of the Arctic.

By the time she gets back Stateside, Natasha has been on a call with Fury for what feels like the better part of a day, and her fingertips are still thawing.

With Barton in recovery, the SHIELD unit she’s been assigned to for these missions is unfamiliar, each face holding a carefully bland expression that makes her grit her teeth. It’s a fraction better than being around agents who jump at her every move, but only just. Despite her better instincts, Nat spends half her time trudging through the snow considering how things would be different if Clint and Coulson were with her. If Maria was.

She spends the rest of her time searching for a super soldier and cursing her sentimentality.

At the stopover in New York, Nat oversees the handover of Rogers (in his Snow White-esque icy tomb) to Fury’s care, and acknowledges the barest nod he gives her as the praise she knows it to be.

On the flight from the city to D.C., Natasha is no longer in the pilot’s seat, and she uses the opportunity to turn on her personal phone and check in with Clint.

Someone at SHIELD had the bright idea to get him a dog to help him focus on something safe during his recovery (her money’s on Coulson), so their text thread is flooded with pictures of his new rescue, Lucky. The most recent image is of the dog, head tilted to the side, tongue stuck out in excitement. A purple bandana adorns his neck.

**He looks just like you** , Nat sends, **can he hold a bow?**

**Oh, so you are alive, good to know** , Clint responds. **Found what you were looking for, then?**

**Obviously :)** Nat replies.

Her phone pings almost instantly, **What a smug emoji** , Clint says.

**:)))))** Nat fires back **.**

Clint sends her a picture of Lucky sprawled on his bed, then adds, **I took my hearing aids out so I can’t hear your smugness**

**That makes… no sense**

**You’re such an ass Barton**

And because he knows her brand of humour, Clint replies, **Obviously :)**

And then,

**Let me know when you land Tasha. Pizza @ 8!**

Nat locks her phone and rests her head back with a smile.

***

When Nat knocks on Barton’s door at 7:59, Maria opens it.

And Natasha Romanoff, super spy extraordinaire, whose moniker strikes fear into the heart of many a monster, nearly drops her armful of pizza boxes at the sight.Maria Hill, standing in Barton’s doorway, her hair falling loose around her shoulders.

Since their little coffee fuelled chat in New Mexico, they’ve not had the opportunity to see much of one another.

So Nat greets her with a totally suave,

“Why are you here?” In a tone that is half shock, half accusation.

As soon as the words are out of her mouth, Nat wishes she could retract them. A ripple of something like hurt passes over Maria’s face, but it’s smoothed away quickly by the flat look she meets every baby-faced agent with.

“I meant, I mean, I thought you’d be at the Trisk, with all that paperwork,” Nat amends, her hands fiddling with the pizza boxes, pushing them back into something like a neat stack.

“Yes, because that’s all my job is these days,” Maria says, and Nat cringes.

“Hill come on, I didn’t mean th-“

“We don’t all get to go on a superhero treasure hunt,” Maria’s voice is measured.

Nat takes a beat, makes herself actually consider her words before they leap from her mouth, something she seems to have forgotten how to do in the last twenty seconds.

“I know. For what it’s worth, it would have been a far better mission with you there.”

There! Nat mentally high fives herself. That was vague enough to be purely the words of a friendly colleague, right?

Maria runs a hand through her hair, and her expression softens somewhat. A fluttering of something crackles to life in Nat’s stomach.

Maria starts to respond, “I-“

“Hey Hill, are you running a screening process out there or something? I can smell pizza!” Barton’s voice cuts in before Maria has the chance to get any further. She shakes her head slightly, and seems to realise that she’s kept Nat on the doorstep of another person’s home, so she steps aside to let her in.

“I don’t know why we’ve been valuing your eyesight for all these years when it’s clear you’ve got a bloodhound’s sense of smell,” Maria says over her shoulder. The doorway to Barton’s place is narrow, so Nat kind of brushes up against Maria’s back as she passes her by, and this close she catches the scent of Maria’s hair. Something citrusy she can’t quite place. Nat can count on one hand the times she’s seen Maria with her hair down. She notices herself filing away every detail of it before she can help herself. Maria is still in her work clothes, but she’s taken off her boots and is padding around in her socks. They have tiny, angry-faced rain clouds on them. Nat didn’t pin Maria to be the kind of person to own anything even vaguely ‘novelty’ like that. And to be wearing them to work? It’s an unfairly delightful discovery.

“Don’t encourage him, he’ll be wanting a raise next,” Nat says, her eyes darting back up to Maria’s face. She’s trying and failing not to be charmed by her choice in _socks,_ of all things.

Nat makes her way through the small hallway, feeling Maria’s presence at her back, and steps into Barton’s open plan living-room-kitchen-office, where the guy himself is sprawled in an armchair, using an arrow to scratch at something beneath his leg cast.

Before she can make any comment on _that_ , she is accosted by a bundle of golden fur trying to jostle the pizza boxes out of her hands.

“Wow, dogs really are like their owners,” Nat deadpans, setting the boxes down on Barton’s coffee table, which is currently covered in paperwork stamped with the SHIELD logo. She gives Lucky a scratch behind the ears as she sits down, and his tail starts wagging at a break-neck speed.

“Me and Hill were just making sure SHIELD is aware of every time I’ve so much as farted since my...situation,” Barton gestures at his leg with the arrow in a flourish, like a conductor before his orchestra. “Thought she‘d earned the right to stay for some food. Did you see any penguins up north?”

“Wrong pole,” Nat and Maria say in unison. Barton rolls his eyes.

“When Barton said we were getting pizza, I didn’t realise you were the one delivering it,” Maria adds, starting to gather up her files. Seeing the reams of paper, Nat feels an echo of guilt at her earlier comment. The bureaucracy shit Maria has to deal with is ridiculous.

“Yeah,” Nat says, lamely. Is Maria annoyed that _she’s_ here? Barton shoots her an odd look, one eyebrow quirked.

“Well, now I know, I’ll leave you to catch up, I don’t want to get in the way,” Maria flicks through her files with one thumb. Inwardly Natasha slumps a little.

“No, don’t go, Hill!” Barton cries with melodrama. “Tell her not to go, Tasha.”

“Don’t go,” Nat parrots automatically, not wanting to seem too eager, and then, at Barton’s quirk of the head, in a _what the hell do you call that_ kind of way, she adds, “one of these is a Hawaiian. Debate pineapple on pizza with us.”

And because she knows Maria, that stops her in her tracks.

“Well now I’m invested,” Maria smiles like she doesn’t even realise she’s doing it, and settles into the seat next to Nat, her paperwork cast aside for a minute. “So where do you two lie on the issue? Do you agree with me, or are you wrong?”

***

Some forty minutes later, pizza devoured, debates had, Nat and Maria are telling Barton a story about a mission in Edinburgh they went on in ‘02, each of them jumping in with the ‘more accurate’ version of events as they see fit. Lucky is sat on Nat’s feet, and Barton has a bewildered look on his face that’s partly down to his painkillers, but mainly because the two of them are bickering like an old married couple.

Clint Barton considers himself an expert on a small list of things. One item on that list is Natasha Romanov. He knows her, as much as anyone can know her, he thinks. And so, given the frequency Maria’s name has been popping up in their text threads, he knows that inviting her here tonight was the right move. Looking between the two women, Clint smiles. He starts drafting a message to Coulson about this for later. The gist of it being,SUCCESS.Hawkeye the wingman…haha, that’s gotta be in the text too.

***

When Maria makes to leave, the evening having rushed away from them, the DC sky settled into inky night, Nat stands to head out at the same time.

Barton is asleep in his armchair, so Nat grabs a sticky note from Maria’s stack of papers and scribbles a goodbye on it, before unceremoniously sticking it to his forehead.He doesn’t stir, but lets out a hefty snore.Maria laughs under her breath, and Nat looks back at her with a smirk. 

The one thing Nat hadn’t counted on when making to leave together was the fact that she’d have to watch Maria slide into her bike leathers.

It’s ridiculous, really, that watching her _put on_ clothes could be doing anything for her, but the glide of the worn-smooth fabric against Maria’s skin has Nat shifting on her feet, and embarrassingly, clearing her throat to hide the small _eep_ threatening to burst forth. There’s something about watching the leather cover the column of Maria’s delicate throat that makes Nat want to reach out and feel the point where the fabric meets her skin.Then Maria bends over to put on her boots, and Nat is faced with a whole other problem.She runs a hand through her hair, trying to look anywhere but down, but it’s difficult.The work of Maria’s thigh muscles shift under the black, and Nat blows out a breath, trying to think of something unsexy. Clint’s cast? Yeah, that’ll do it. 

Maria glances up from her position, bent over her boots, and says, mistaking Nat’s expressions for impatience, “Sorry, I know this shit takes forever, but I can’t stand to ride without them in the cold.”

Nat waves her off, not quite trusting her voice to come out at an appropriate pitch in the moment.

“You don’t have to wait for me, Nat, I can find my own bike,” Maria adds.

“I know, “ Nat replies, and yep, her voice is one or two registers lower than she’d designate _platonic-coworker-friendly_.She furrows her brows at herself, but that just seems to confuse Maria, who shakes her head as she finished lacing her boots and stands.

Nat opens the door and pushes out into the cool air, trying to mask her features.She takes the steps two at a time until she comes to the sidewalk, feeling suddenly ridiculous.This is her _job._ Maria is her superior. She can fake indifference _._ Nat hears Maria step out behind her, hears the careful click of the door as it’s gently closed, and then Maria jogs down the steps to her side, fussing with the stack of papers under her arm, pushing them into her bag.

“I need to drop these back to the Trisk,” Maria says, and Nat can see her studying her profile. 

“Sure, yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Nat stutters, and she starts towards her car.

“Wait, Nat,” Maria calls, and Nat turns back to look over her shoulder.Maria is illuminated under the glow of a streetlamp, cast in a hazy orange glow, and there’s a look of consideration on her face,

“Did I do something wrong, staying tonight?”

Nat wants to laugh out of frustration with just how wrong that is, wants to say _no, you staying could never be a problem, you staying makes me happy, you staying gives me hope_ , _you staying makes the world feel normal and that is everything,_ but her doubts keep her silent.For a moment.

“No,” Nat says simply, shaking her head, continuing to walk to her car. When she reaches it, she leans up against it. Maria stops a few feet from her.“I’m glad you stayed. I’m just…tired. Long flight.” Which is _a_ truth, but not _the_ truth.

Maria waits for a moment, as if she’s expecting Nat to elaborate, but when she doesn’t, she just nods in reply. Maria places her bag at her feet, and checks the straps at the cuffs of her jacket, glancing down the street, and Nat spots the glint of her bike there.She hadn’t seen it when she’d pulled up earlier.

“Well, I should be going before I get a thousand calls from Fury,” Maria says, picking up her bag, but she doesn’t move.Nat thinks about how late it is, how relentless Maria is, and she feels a pride in her chest, but worries that it’s not hers to claim.

Despite Maria’s words, neither of them move. There’s something on Maria’s face, a hesitation that Nat’s never seen before, and it doesn’t look like it belongs there.Using that as her excuse, Nat blurts out,

“I thought about you.In the Arctic.”Maria looks up, surprise written over her features, and for a split second Nat wants to take it back. 

“I didn’t hear from you,” Maria replies, and she sounds annoyed at herself for even saying it.“I wondered, if after New Mexico…” she lets the sentence trail off, and Nat feels her heart pounding in her ears.Are they really having this talk, now? Near midnight, outside Barton’s shitty apartment?

“If you’d made a mistake,” Nat finishes for her, and Maria steps closer, a noise of protest in her throat, her eyes following Nat’s.“Hill, I feel like an idiot, I’ve blurred the boundaries, I just-“

Maria cuts her off with a kiss.

It takes a moment for Nat’s body to catch up with her brain, the shock of _Hill is kissing me!_ Maria _is kissing me!_ crashing through her thoughts like lightning.

Maria’s lips are soft, and Nat angles her head up towards her, threading one hand into her still-loose hair, luxuriating in the feel of the soft strands against her fingertips. Maria makes a quiet noise of pleasure, a low hum that reverberates into Nat’s mouth, and Nat smiles, before hastily pulling back for a second.

“Woah,” Nat says, intelligently. Maria glances down at her, colour curling along her sharp cheekbones, her mouth slightly parted. She moves to step back, but Nat catches onto her hand, where she’s still holding onto her bag. “Good woah!” she adds quickly, and Maria stops, then lets out a sharp laugh that completely transforms her face, letting the bag drop to the ground.

“Oh god,” Maria replies. “Good. I was imagining the paperwork _that_ would take.” Nat makes an affronted huff, but pulls Maria back down to her with a wry smile, rising onto her tiptoes to close the distance faster.

Their mouths meet with more certainty this time, and Maria leans into Nat’s body, pushing her against the curve of her car.Nat groans, and curves the hand that was in Maria’s hair to cup her jaw, using her thumb to stroke across that tantalising spot where the leather of her jacket meets her neck.

Her other hand falls to the curve of Maria’s bicep, and she squeezes the muscle there as Maria sucks Nat’s bottom lip into her mouth, teasing the fullness with her teeth before roaming over the spot with her tongue in soothing strokes.

Nat gasps at the sensation, and Maria’s tongue meets hers, caressing in strong yet gentle motions.Maria’s hands are at Nat’s waist, and she moves one to the small of her back, the material of Nat’s shirt rucking up beneath her fingers, and the cold of the car behind her shocks into Nat’s bare skin.Nat surges forwards, and uses the momentum to flip them around, pinning Maria against the vehicle instead.

A flush of excitement rushes downNat’s spine as she runs her hands down Maria’s arms, their kisses growing more urgent, and Maria wraps her arms around Nat’s back, when suddenly there is an almighty rumble, a flash behind Nat’s eyelids, and a downpour begins.

For a while longer they just stand there, unhurried and entwined, their kisses turning more lazy, their movements rain-slicked, their bodies pressed together, raindrops running between them where they meet, inseparable, but then Nat pulls back, and shouts over the deluge,

“The paperwork!” and bends to pick the bag up from where it was dropped. Maria looks at her with an amused disbelief, raindrops dropping from her eyelashes, skirting down the curve of her jacket, and suddenly they’re both laughing at the absurdity of the moment.

Nat races to unlock her car and they both climb inside, out of breath and saturated. They sit in their respective seats, trying to get their breath back, and Nat can’t stop smiling.

“I think the Trisk can wait,” Maria says, dropping her hand to Nat’s thigh, her head against the seat rest. Nat takes Maria’s hand and starts the engine, blasting the heaters.

“I think it can,” Nat agrees.

And it does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what can I say, I'm a sucker for a rain kiss.  
> I remain terrible at regularly updating. Still, I hope you enjoyed!  
> As always your feedback & kudos are so so appreciated.


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